Simple , blocking - forge toys have been around for hundreds of years , but it took a 20th - century Danish whiz named Ole Kirk Christiansen to invent the interlocking bit we know today as LEGO brick . It all commence in 1932 in the settlement of Billund , long before LEGO had achieved humans supremacy as a brand .
A master joiner and carpenter , Christiansen open up a low woodworking shop with his boy Godtfred , just 12 geezerhood quondam at the fourth dimension . They manufactured step ladder , press boards and later thrive to make wooden toys , and in 1934 knight their line LEGO , a contraction of the Danish " leg godt" ( " play well" ) .
And play well they did . The troupe flesh out from only six employee in 1934 to forty in 1942 . LEGO was also fairly reform-minded , and became an former adoptive parent of new technologies and materials . In fact , the grouping became the first Danish company to own a plastic shot - forge machine . When the Christiansens came across prototypes of a British toy called " Kiddicraft ego - Locking Building Bricks" in 1947 , they adopted the estimation and part manufacture their own version two years later . The bricks had pegs on top and hollow bottoms , allowing children to lock the brick together and create elaborate construction never possible with the simple wooden blocks of yesteryear .
Dubbing them the ( decidedly un - attention-getting ) " Automatic Binding Bricks,“ they were the forerunner to today ’s LEGO brick . But they had n’t quite got the normal right yet . The bricks lack the thermionic vacuum tube found inside New LEGOs which greatly improve stability . Further , it seemed the universe was n’t quick for plastic toys just yet ; sales agreement of plastic LEGO miniature in the former 50 were fair at intimately .
In 1958 , the LEGO brick finally come into its own . And while beginner Ole Kirk Christiansen never lived to see his company ’s prime , his boy Godtfred Christiansen open up and patented the now - standard LEGO scantling - and - metro configuration , and introduced roof bricks to the " LEGO System of Play,“ which was comprised of 28 sets and 8 vehicles .
After a devastating warehouse fire in 1960 , the troupe decided to ditch production of wooden toys totally and focalise or else on charge plate . LEGO has n’t convert the design of their brick since then , which means today ’s set are compatible with sets from 1958 onward .
More LEGO fun : In 1961 , the LEGO steering wheel was invented . At first blush that may not go as momentous as human beings ’s initial exploitation of the wheel ( approximately 5,000 BCE ) , but considering that today LEGO move around out more than 300 million tiny steering wheel per year , it in reality work them the most prolific wheel manufacturer in the mankind . Along with 3000 other types of piece , they ’re package into 37,000 LEGO bent per hour . And concord to LEGO , the process they use to shape their plastic is so accurate that a mere 18 out of every million bricks conk out to meet timber standards .
This article was written byRansom Riggsand excerpted from the Mental Floss bookIn the origin : The Origins of Everything .
